Ep: 79 The Fight for Information Freedom with, Bill Ottman of Minds.com

Conspiracy Theories, Censorship and Distributed Systems.

When I decided to start Uptrennd in August 2018, there were only two platforms out there doing anything even relatively close, Steemit.com and Minds.com.
Bill Ottman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Minds.com, and I have looked up to him for inspiration since day one.
This was a very cool experience for me to get the opportunity to chat with Bill, and was also a really fun chat as well.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)

00:28 How coronavirus is placing an impact on Bill Ottman, his team and him personally.

01:54 What Bill's opinion is regarding shift towards distributed work once things eventually ease up or things will just go back to normal essentially.

04:54 What are Bill's thoughts on government's assistance to small businesses and residents to keep the doors open and livelihoods will keep on going, then there's another big conversation regarding people's libertarianism that people should get back to work, everyone's saying let's do this, every man for himself, but then there's the other thing when government thought it's imperative for them to take care of people who are not that fortunate, because "not every country is like Canada" where government is just handing out money, which introduces a whole other thing of inflation.

05:54 How does Bill anticipate to see how small businesses and the economy progresses through this time?

08:40 Talk about a good overview of Minds, like what their ethos is at Minds, not just necessarily the mechanics.

11:13 How Minds Pro ecosystem is related to that traffic that Minds (or Bill) are driving in.

13:24 What is the main driver that is making people stick to a new social platform?

13:37 What is the big selling or sticking point for Bill and his team?

16:12 How does Minds scale out the issues of people subscribing to hundres of people or pages?

19:02 How does Minds ecosystem work in terms of an "immutable place where the community can trust what's happening in that inevitable progression as things get bigger" and they they realize that they have to remove some of the alt-right speech on the platform because it just creates an overall negative vibe just like YouTube's censorship?

23:31 How can a distributed social media network comply with laws? For example, Minds is a company with a figure head and there's someone who is able to have their hands put in cuffs?

26:35 What are Bill's thoughts on fully distributed "outside the law" social media network, whether it's even possible?

33:25 Conversation shifted to aliens from talks of lawns (or lawnmowing, because minutes earlier, someone was mowing the lawn in front of Bill's house).

33:26 What would aliens think about our laws (or lawns) and the ridiculousness like they would think this is just insanity, and what are you people doing?

39:41 Jeff talked about COVID, that general population can actually be controlled. If the government issues lockdowns, people followed, but then there are others that don't want to be restricted, which is only fair because it's in the constitution that people should be able to do what they want.

41:12 "Freedom of information is a powerful thing in a way that they can control public perception." ~ Jeff

41:56 What are Bill's thoughts on YouTube harrowing information in a time where it's so crucial to have freedom of information?

45:56 "Truth is subjective based on their own personal ideals and visions." ~ Jeff

46:32 How do these fringe groups moving into a community impact the community dynamic and how do you stay positive and scalable in a way that someone can come on without totally getting bombarded by the things they don't want to see?

48:52 Where have been Bill's pivot points , like he had vision or direction but